At an NBA-best 34-6, it’s worth savoring the little things. During the Warriors’ blistering January, TV crews have taken to showing opposing coaches’ expressions during the third quarter. Some trend towards disbelief, others towards frustration, but they’re unified by a sense of helpless resignation. Short of removing players from the court — as the Rockets attempted to do by suckering Stephen Curry into a potential altercation — there’s no obvious way to slow down the Warriors. They’re too hungry on defense and too pitiless on offense. During the first two months of the season, the Warriors’ developed the system and skills to be a dominant team. In the last month, they’ve developed their killer instinct.

It wasn’t even two years ago that the Nuggets and the Warriors matched up in the first round, with the Nuggets as the clear favorites. Since that fateful series — yet another first round exit for a talented Nuggets team — Denver has been in a barely controlled free-fall, attempting to rebuild with a collection of mismatched parts. For the Warriors, that series served as a first glimpse of what the team could grow to become. Stephen Curry was absolutely dominant, Andrew Bogut played a key role in anchoring the defense, and Draymond Green emerged as a major piece of the rotation following David Lee’s injury. The Warriors’ MLK Day match-up should serve as an opportunity for fans to marvel at how far the Warriors have advanced in a relatively short period, but also to remember that fortunes change abruptly in the NBA. The same Nuggets team that flamed out against the Warriors in the playoffs had a 15-game win streak a few months earlier. That regular-season success provided little comfort as the team watched the Warriors advance to the second round.

Kierkegaard once observed that “Everything resolves itself in contradiction.” There was a time when Warriors fans talked about how their high-scoring, fast-playing team was stylistically incapable of playing lock-down defense. The same fans then watched coaches attempt to bolster the Warriors’ famously weak defense by slowing the game down and bulking it up. Now, nearly half-way through Steve Kerr’s inaugural season, we have a Warriors team that simultaneously leads the league in fast-break points and defensive efficiency, and that uses its big men to create more scoring opportunities for its smaller players. What to make of all these basketball contradictions? Maybe nothing. Or maybe the best team in the NBA.

After a couple weeks of easy wins, Steve Kerr decided to give the Warriors a challenge. By resting Andrew Bogut and Andre Iguodala against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday night, Kerr pitted his squad minus two of its key defenders against one of the NBA’s most potent offenses. In a classic Gregg Popovich move, Kerr not only guaranteed rest for his two veterans, but set up the rest of his squad for a low-risk situation. If the remaining Warriors found a way to beat the Thunder, it would add insult to the injury of a season sweep. And if the Thunder finally found their offensive groove against the Warriors, the game could be distinguished away because of the absent players. But while the Warriors have a readymade excuse for their 115-127 loss to the Thunder, they’d be wise to apply the other part of the lesson from when the Spurs when key players sit. Everyone — bench player or star — remains fully accountable for their play, no matter the line-up. The Warriors’ defensive performance against the Thunder, even accounting for the absent players, was a disappointment.

On Wednesday night against the Miami Heat, the Warriors’ bench scored 41 points, Andrew Bogut was perfect from the line (4-4) despite intentional fouling, and Andre Iguodala was assertive on offense (4-5 for 9 points). It’s as if Steve Kerr and his staff are now treating these games as to-do lists, scratching off previous weaknesses each time a new opponent comes to town. Despite a relatively disjointed game, the Warriors held the lead for the final 43:56 and won by 15. With 8 straight wins overall, 15 straight wins at home and 13 straight wins over the Eastern Conference, the Warriors aren’t just playing with confidence, they’re playing with a sense of inevitability.

In the NBA, you have teams that get by on raw talent, teams that thrive thanks to flawless execution, and teams that win because they play as a cohesive, unselfish whole. And then you have the Warriors, who sit atop the NBA standings because they combine all three qualities. Tuesday’s road win against the Utah Jazz wasn’t the prettiest or most dominant game the Warriors have played this season, but the deciding 44-point third quarter was a pretty good snapshot of what they’ve become. When the Warriors lock into these moments, they reduce everyone to wide-eyed spectators — including their opponents.

On Friday night, Mark Jackson was back in Oracle Arena — and back displaying questionable basketball judgment. While Jackson mused behind the microphone that “a rim protector is overrated in this league,” Steve Kerr rebutted the argument with his rotation. In a physical and sometimes sloppy game, the Warriors finally gained some intensity and separation in the second half thanks to Andrew Bogut and Draymond Green’s defensive control of the paint, and all-around help from an unexpected source, Justin Holiday. It wasn’t particularly pretty, but it was a win in the type of game that Jackson’s Warriors lost more times than they should have. Jackson deserves credit for plenty of things during his Warriors’ tenure — as he reminded his national TV audience — but the effective use of Bogut and an efficiently adaptable rotation are not among them.

On Christmas night, Draymond Green called the Warriors “nice.” Since then, they have been anything but. After two frustrating losses at the hands of the Los Angeles teams over the Christmas holiday, the Warriors have been demoralizing their opponents. They’re not just winning, they’re disposing of teams in particularly gutting ways. Against the Pacers — a team that prides itself on its defense and physicality — the Warriors got Klay Thompson open look after open look in the second half, on his way to 40 points on 14-25 shooting, and met every elbow and shove with one of their own. What started off looking like a sloppy let-down game ended as a technical deconstruction, punctuated with Draymond Green finding Marreese Speights on a celebratory alley-oop. It was an ideal play to encapsulate the Warriors’ second half dominance — perfectly executed and physically crushing. In the aftermath, Speights ran down the court raising the roof. Or was he signaling that the Warriors are still raising their elite-team ceiling?

The Warriors have reached a point where they need to be seen to be believed. I don’t have the words to describe what Stephen Curry did dribbling a basketball on Monday night against Russell Westbrook. There are no similes or metaphors that will convey the ferociousness of Draymond Green’s defense in forcing a five-second violation on an inbound off a made basket or repeatedly sending bigger men away from the rim at point-blank range. I will try to describe the deterministic beauty of Klay Thompson’s shot and the infectious joy of Marreese Speights’ success, but having just witnessed the real thing, I know my account will fall short. As a writer, it’s a frustrating realization. But as a Warriors fan, it’s heaven.

With the Warriors’ NBA-best start, fans have already begun to speculate about the individual accolades members of this team could earn. There have been MVP chants for Stephen Curry and rumblings about Steve Kerr for Coach of the Year. The All Defensive Team will be a joke if Draymond Green and Andrew Bogut aren’t on it. Marreese Speights has even mounted a dark-horse run for Sixth Man of the Year. Of course, all of this talk is premature. But if I were to join in the speculative fun, my personal favorite for recognition is a member of the franchise usually content to operate in the background. GM Bob Myers may not be a constant media presence like owner Joe Lacob or an instantly-recognizable NBA legend like advisor Jerry West, but he’s been responsible on a day-to-day basis for guiding this team from the lottery to the top of the standings in three very active years. Myers may be a quiet architect, but the team he assembled continues to make a whole lot of noise.